How to stop this crap

From a previous blog post...- Battleground match-ups are now either Arranged Team or Random Team. Random Team consists of players who joined single; Arranged Team consists of a group of players who queued together. Arranged Team players may only be able to play against other Arranged Team players, likewise with Random Team players who can only play against other Random Team players.

Perfect! Hopefully everyone would get a clue and go with the random groups because fighting stacked groups is only fun for full guild groups... otherwise it blows and is just free honor. Blizzard needs to think of crap like this BEFORE releasing stuff... it is time to stop serving things up on a silver platter for the hardcore players.
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Its like letting NFL teams play highschoolers to claim the Lombardi trophy.
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This scenario kills BGs every night. Normally they are logged in from 3 PM until 5-6 AM the next morning. They have nothing better to do than WoW PvP and that is how the ranks system is built. They sit on Ventrillo all day long and do nothing else.

Yes they are good... damn good. Do I want to fight them? Yes if I could get a good guild group of my own, but I can't. These no-lifes should not be allowed to fight PUGs. Its like letting NFL teams play highschoolers to claim the Lombardi trophy. It is dumb!

Irth Online beta preview up @ Gamergod.com

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Removed post, but this will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

This post originally linked to an article about Irth Online at Gamergod.com (now defunct). No copies of the article exist.

WoW PvP changes... rumors

Don't ask where these came from... and no they are not official.

- Grand Marshal no longer awards the purchase of weapons at rank 14, but only access to the Grand Marshal's Armory. The GM's Armory has a selection of weapons, armor etc. which can be purchased from special Insignias that drop from all players of the opposing faction, and other various honor tokens rewarded from battleground victories. Each item in the armory costs a certain number of Insignias/tokens. Players who reach Grand Marshal may still have access to the Armory even after losing GM rank. The selection of items within the Armory will change all the time.

- Honor from players outside of battlegrounds has been increased significantly. Players outside of battlegrounds now drop Insignia’s which can be used to purchase special items.

- The Battle Standard awarded through the PvP honor system can once again be used outside of battlegrounds.

- Honor from players inside of battlegrounds has been altered. Players who are higher rank, or from a higher ranked guild now are worth much more honor, and award additional bonus honor for a battleground win.

- The "diminishing returns" from killing players inside and outside of battlegrounds has been altered slightly.

- Cross-server battlegrounds have been introduced.

- Battleground match-ups are now either Arranged Team or Random Team. Random Team consists of players who joined single; Arranged Team consists of a group of players who queued together. Arranged Team players may only be able to play against other Arranged Team players, likewise with Random Team players who can only play against other Random Team players.

- The Guild Honor Ladder has been introduced, which ranks guilds on servers based upon honor rankings. The highest ranked guild on the server will find special rewards available to them (such as a reduced repair cost, savings on taxi services etc.), as well as their tabard displayed on all battleground entrances and outside the Knight's Quarters.

- The honor rewards for Warsong Gultch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley have been altered slightly.

WoW's black plague

The lands of Azeroth have been infected! Originally the message boards lit up with posts about some plague spreading accross the land and killing untold thousands of players. Wannabe heros raced accross the land in search of cures. What was causing all this death?

A bug. Just your run of the mill "Oops missed this on Test Center" bug. This quote from Shacknews sums it up best. "Blizzard adds in a new instance, Zul'Gurub. Inside is the god of blood, Hakkar. Well, when you fight him he has a debuff called Corrputed Blood. It does like 250-350 damage to players and affects nearby players. The amazing thing is SOME PLAYERS have brought this disease (and it is a disease) back to the towns, outside of the instance. It starts spreading amongst the general population including npcs, who can out generate the damage. Some servers have gotten so bad that you can't go into the major cities without getting the plague (and anyone less than like level 50 nearly immediately die).

GM's even tried quarantining players in certain areas, but the players kept escaping the quarantine and infect other players."

Here is a short flash put together by WoWaids.YTMND.com that IMO describes it best.Click at your own risk!

But WTF? This was actually something exciting to drown out the boringly repetitive gameplay of WoW. Like everyone else I truly believed this was a LIVE EVENT... something Blizzard promised to be part of WoW. Sadly it was not the case.

I wish Blizzard was quicker on their feet and would of offered a quest of some sort to cure the disease... making a bug into an actual event. This is the sort of development I want to see from Blizzard... from any MMO developer... PLEASE.

Nintendogs... the gift of game

To say I was nervous when I purchased a Nintendo DS and Nintendogs for my girlfriend’s birthday would be an understatement. My girlfriend doesn’t play video games at every chance she gets like I do. She has played Mario Kart: Double Dash a half dozen times with me and can make cute little faces imitating Kirby. Some limited PC gaming with her siblings many years ago playing the original Warcraft ends her experience with gaming.

I kept the receipt and made sure not to open any of the packaging. I had no idea if this gift was going to be a hit or flop. Luckily it wasn’t the latter and she absolutely loves the gift. So much so she is going to be getting the newest Kirby game, Kirby Canvas Curse. She absolutely loves her Nintendog and treats it almost as though it was real… because honestly that is how good the game is.

The innovation packed into Nintendogs is amazing. Every unique feature of the Nintendo DS is put to good use. The wireless capability allows you to connect to other DS owners without any sort of leash… err… cable. The touch screen is used for petting your puppy and performing various tasks. The microphone is really the centerpiece of the game allowing you to train your dog to respond to voice commands. Teaching your first puppy its name is quite an experience for even the most seasoned gamer.

The game is very intuitive and so easily picked up that I found myself just letting her plug away. I didn’t need to explain anything as I had feared. I didn’t underestimate her ability to pick up the game and learn it, but with many hardcore gaming years under my belt I knew that even the simplest children’s games could require an innate amount of knowledge to get started in. A prime example is the bubble blower toy in game. The operation is so simple it almost made me laugh. Blow into the microphone and bubbles appear on the screen. She didn’t need a pop up menu to tell her how to do this… she just did it. It was common sense!

This sort of technology has been a long time coming. The gaming market is growing stale with sequels being the dominate factor. Feature lists are now the “innovation” instead of the technology. Nintendo has reversed this trend in their hardware. The hardware is the innovation and games that capitalize on it are innovative. I still remember articles detailing how Madden ’05 had innovative features and I can’t help but letting a small part inside of me roll on the floor laughing.

Innovation invites new gamers into the market. Games like Nintendogs focus on fun and can easily win over a new gamer. These gamers are very likely to branch out into other games that intrigue them such as my girlfriends fancy with Kirby. The key for Nintendo is to keep these gamers attracted to Nintendo products. That isn’t hard to do considering the direction most of the industry is heading.

The Nintendo DS is an inspiring piece of hardware that really has endless possibilities and Nintendogs is becoming its flagship. It is more than just cute puppies and virtual dog shows. It very much is a game.

My first /. hit

My first /. (Slashdot) hit.

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Consolidated post and applied labels.

More on the Revolution controller

Just to follow up on my last entry about the Revolution controller.

It is definately a mixed bag across the internet in regards to the Revolution controller. These seem to be the big complaints...

1. Not enough buttons or control sticks.
-Turning motion into input reduces the need for buttons and analog sticks. Current games use too many buttons as it is making you fumble over the controller. Simple = good.

2. How do they expect you to play .
-The popular fillers have been Madden, FPS's, and so forth. First off these people need to get out of their shell and realize there is more than one way to play a game. People need to stop thinking about how they couldn't play their current games with the new controller. Its new! Give developers time to develop their flagship games for the controller and you will see NEW ways to play your games.

3. All it is good for will be Duck Hunt 2.0
-Wrong... it means playing old game types in a new way. The market and various genre of games have become alarmingly stale the past few years. It has been more about sequels than originality. Any game on the Revolution is going to be a new experience for a while... it will be inventing new ways to play games. All because of the controller.

4. It is meant for Japanese gamers who like sword swinging and knick knack games.
-Sorry... this thing was built to be fun. If fun is limited to Japan... I may be moving there. People are sadly taking the tech demos as real games... believing the controller only works for the applications it was shown in. With developers there will come FULL GAMES built around this controller. Give it time people and let the developers do their jobs.

Heartless_ out.

Nintendo... Revolution controller

The article first appeared on 1up.com and has been linked everywhere. This picture is honestly to god the best one of the new controller. For anyone living under a rock the past few days... yes... this really is the controller.


Am I impressed? Hell yes. With all the secrecy surrounding the controller I was horribly worried we might wind up with a Nintendo Stink Bomb equivelant to the Virtual Boy.

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I was horribly worried we might wind up with a Nintendo Stink Bomb equivelant to the Virtual Boy.
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Nintendo wasn't kidding when they said it would be a simple controller. It is best decribed as a remote controller. Two face buttons, a D-pad, and a trigger on the bottom. Simplicity IMO is greater than the current trend of Xbox and PS3 to put more buttons in the hands of the gamer. The main function of the new controller is in the sensors placed on your TV set that determine location and motion of the controller. You can read the article for more details.

My feelings towards it are good. I am particulary curious to get this thing and its attachment for an FPS game. I'm actually looking forward to the next generation consoles now.

However, my concern is that change will scare developers away. This is a sad fact of the industry. The "suits" know that cool sells... and cool is the same ole washed up crap that we had during the last generation of consoles. We can only hope enough gamers like myself see through the crap and grab the revolution.

Ninetendo has sold at least one... to ME. Now vote with your wallet.

EDIT: Video for the controller has been released.

Worthless EQ II video...

Got me why I clicked download on this one.

Random groups of bad ass looking monsters in randomly placed areas of the world getting smacked down by random EQ II players. Hmmm... such inovation there from the EQ II dev team! I think I fell asleep during the video... or maybe it was just so uneventful that I forgot to remember what happened.

EQ II... such good graphics and voice acting put to waste.

Not to mention the credits are a year long and make the download an extra 20MB... blah.

I am going to get a hold of these people just to tell them how much they suck. Stay tuned for the results of that!

Replies to my Stun article

Going to consolidate some thread links for you for replies to my Stun article.

VN Boards WoW General Board post
WoW.com Azgalor Realm Forum
WoW.com PvP Discussion Forum post

And here is by far the best reply out of all the boards... from VN WoW general board... owning up Rogue whiners.

"If I understand the argument correctly, a Rogue "needs" all those stuns in order to kill "some" classes. I hear a Warrior can "own" a Rogue with Overpower if a Rogue so much as THINKS about using his Evasion skill. I hear that, due to armor and hit points, a Warrior has to be stunned if a Rogue is to have a chance.

With Frost Nova, Blink, Polymorph and Mana Shield, a Rogue needs stuns to kill a Mage. Maybe I'm getting too simplistic here, but do Rogues want to be able to easily defeat every other class? Or do they want to be "balanced"?

There's a simple mathematical FACT that most PvP freaks seem to forget: for every VICTOR there must be a VANQUISHED. What's the matter? You don't want to take your turn as the vanquished? That's just stupid. You already have a way to pick and choose your battles. You already have a way to escape a bad situation. A Chance at escape is all anyone should ask for, and you have it.

If Blizzard decided to re-work the class to where you LOST much of your stun ability but GAINED in other areas to compensate, would you still play a Rogue? Or is it strictly the "gank factor" you crave? I just wish some developer would get past the "mezz-stun" combat model and make it so every class has a chance to win or escape a fight.

If the Rogue Class didn't exist, then WoW would be pretty close to that and we'd be griping about Polymorph. Unfortunately, I think we're seeing how different it is to balance PvE abilities with PvP abilities. I still don't like to be frozen and unable to respond when I'm playing a game. If that's anyone's idea of fun, then you are made of sturdier stuff than I am." - Rethyl

Giving credit where credit is due... great post. Wish I could claim credit for it!